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Best & Worst sounding bay area starions

Radiopaw

Radiopaw

Hello, I saw this thread over on a few forums and i was curious what stations are the best and worst sounding. This is my opinion purely, but I’d like to share it.

Best:
* KMVQ (Bonneville / Top 40)
* KITS (Audacy / Alternative)
* KOSF (iHeartMedia / 70’s, 80’s and 90’s)
* KALW (SFUCD / Talk, News and More)

Worst:
* KISQ (iHeartMedia / AC)
* KEZR (Alpha / Hot AC, arguable CHR)
* KBAY (Alpha / Country)
* KBLX (Bonneville / Urban AC)

Alpha is obvious from my other thread, no HD Radio automatically is a massive hit to audio quality, but their processing sounds flat awful. KISQ has a weird similar situation too, but they have HD, but it just sounds flat and weird like KITS before the return of Live 105.

I listen to the radio much too often throughout the day and drive all throughout the bay, so I have become pretty used to FM radio and noticed these observations. It is in no way objective, I try to judge signals only with strong signal.
 
Radiopaw said:
Hello, I saw this thread over on a few forums and i was curious what stations are the best and worst sounding. This is my opinion purely, but I’d like to share it.

Best:
* KMVQ (Bonneville / Top 40)
* KITS (Audacy / Alternative)
* KOSF (iHeartMedia / 70’s, 80’s and 90’s)
* KALW (SFUCD / Talk, News and More)

Worst:
* KISQ (iHeartMedia / AC)
* KEZR (Alpha / Hot AC, arguable CHR)
* KBAY (Alpha / Country)
* KBLX (Bonneville / Urban AC)

Alpha is obvious from my other thread, no HD Radio automatically is a massive hit to audio quality, but their processing sounds flat awful. KISQ has a weird similar situation too, but they have HD, but it just sounds flat and weird like KITS before the return of Live 105.

I listen to the radio much too often throughout the day and drive all throughout the bay, so I have become pretty used to FM radio and noticed these observations. It is in no way objective, I try to judge signals only with strong signal.
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From what I recall, you live around Redwood City too. Try the KDFC repeater station at 104.9*. It's classical, so you have to not hate symphonies or string quartets, but I've heard them on a variety of radios and I think their audio quality sparkles. In fact, if you listen to them for 30 minutes, you'll find it difficult to return your dial to KISQ/98.1 or its sibling KOSF/103.7 (both of which I find overprocessed and overcompressed).

Of the 8 stations you mention, only KALW sounds clean to me, but that's largely because the daytime programming - predominantly NPR and BBC shows - is aired in clear, glorious monaural. Yes, the stereo pilot is off until 8 pm, which yields less noise than when stereo's on. Then it becomes a question of where you're listening to them, because the noise floor gets worse the further down the peninsula you travel.

(* If you drive north towards The City, 104.9 starts getting scratchy around the San Mateo Bridge. When you reach that location, switch to either 89.9 or 90.3 for a better listening experience.)
 
MarioMania said:
KISQ sounds fine
Click to expand...
i agree with @Radiopaw here w/re to KISQ. Their overall processing sounds okay, but it sounds like a mediocre MP3 stream for no good reason: weak lows, mushy mids and lousy, phasey highs consistent with heavily artifact-ed, low bitrate MP3, I'd say it's probably somewhere around 64 or 96 kbps. It improved when the car radio switches to the HD signal, but most of the time it sits on analog because that's how FM works around here.

As far as the format goes, there's actually some decent music that gets played. If the audio didn't sound so bad, I'd probably listen to it somewhat more often.

c
 
This thread was enough for me to sign up, I’ve done many years in radio but I want to speak about my experience while working under Alpha in SF (I’m now relocated - and will remain anonymous with this comment)

Alpha was very cheap with everything technical. If it was working they didn’t want to change or improve it. Everything is running on as original as it can be. They operate like a small market business.
 
cc333 said:
i agree with @Radiopaw here w/re to KISQ. Their overall processing sounds okay, but it sounds like a mediocre MP3 stream for no good reason: weak lows, mushy mids and lousy, phasey highs consistent with heavily artifact-ed, low bitrate MP3, I'd say it's probably somewhere around 64 or 96 kbps. It improved when the car radio switches to the HD signal, but most of the time it sits on analog because that's how FM works around here.

As far as the format goes, there's actually some decent music that gets played. If the audio didn't sound so bad, I'd probably listen to it somewhat more often.

c
Click to expand...
I mean it sounds fine to me on Analog when I visit in Vallejo
 
Hmm, maybe I'm just being picky, but other stations sound better to me (none of those lossy MP3 artifacts).

I've tried this on several otherwise fine sounding radios, with and without HD, so that can't be it.

c
 
All of the Bonneville stations sound good to me. Agreed that Live 105 does as well. KYLD, and frankly all of the iHeart stations, don’t sound as crisp to me. Not well versed technically enough to know why.
 
When I was in the Bay Area in September, I was astonished on how bad KISQ sounded OTA. I thought they were having tech issues. They sound great online.

What bothers me most is that San Francisco radio sound was the best I ever heard in years past in my view.
 
Michael Rivers Kramer said:
What bothers me most is that San Francisco radio sound was the best I ever heard in years past in my view.
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Yeah, San Francisco's radio market was better before COVID. With the deep cost cutting over the past three years, it has taken its toll on the OTA sound of most stations.

There are still stations that sound decent of course, but not many.

c
 
cc333 said:
Yeah, San Francisco's radio market was better before COVID. With the deep cost cutting over the past three years, it has taken its toll on the OTA sound of most stations.

There are still stations that sound decent of course, but not many.

c
Click to expand...
I was eating something in my car this evening (a 2016 Ford Fusion, no HD in the radio), and bounced back and forth between KOIT and KISQ. KOIT sounds alive, good solid processing. The Breeze sounds flat, lifeless, like the processing hasn't much energy. Obviously not an engineering analysis, but there was a discernible difference between the two stations.
 
Weiserguy said:
I was eating something in my car this evening (a 2016 Ford Fusion, no HD in the radio), and bounced back and forth between KOIT and KISQ. KOIT sounds alive, good solid processing. The Breeze sounds flat, lifeless, like the processing hasn't much energy. Obviously not an engineering analysis, but there was a discernible difference between the two stations.
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Agree 100% about KISQ. We were listening to them Dec. 24th driving to the Bay Area, in a car with HD, and indeed the audio sounded very flat.
 
KISQ's HD signal sounds better than the non HD one, I think (brighter, at least), but both still sound pretty much like garbage to me.

I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I still appreciate stations that have good, hi fi sound quality, and KISQ just... doesn't.

I've heard low bitrate Internet streams and scratchy, faraway AM stations that sound better!

c
 
Haven't been up to the Bay Area in some time, but when we'd drive there would tune into KCSM 91.1 as soon as we got within range. Good jazz station. Recently started listening to the station via Internet streaming. When driving now listen primarily to KPIG, based in Freedom, near Watsonville.
 
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